Dr. Csanyi is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Ethology at the University of Budapest,Eotvos Lorand. He is one of my favorite ethologists.His book “If Dogs Could Talk. Exploring The Canine Mind”, connects with all dog lovers.

The wolf is the largest of all canids weighing up to and sometimes more than 144 pounds.

Wolves hunt in cooperative packs for prey larger than itself.

Habitat includes the tundra, taiga, steppe, savanna, and forests.

When running short distances the wolf can reach speeds up to 37 to 43 miles per hour.

If a wolf is being chased, it is capable of jumping as high as 13-16 feet in the air.

When out hunting it can maintain a run for 15 to 20 minutes. After that wolves need to rest.

Wolves can tread water while killing their prey.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, gray wolves once ranged from coast-to-coast and from Alaska to Mexico, and they were one of the most wide-ranging animals on the continent.

There are a number of wolf subspecies in the U.S of which the “plains” wolf belongs. This wolf is also found in the Great Lakes. Idaho wolves that lived more than 100 years ago possibly had gray wolf DNA. Some researchers believe that evidence demonstrates that Idaho’s wolves from hundred’s of years ago were similar to Canadian wolves. Todays Idaho’s gray wolf population originated from Alberta and British Columbia in 1995 -1996.

Wolves can hear and see extremely well.

Pack wolves can detect the smell of an elk as far away as 1.25 to 1.55 miles.

Tame wolves respond to imitated wolf calls from as far as 3.75 miles.

Volume of a wolf’s brain ranges from 9.2 to 10.4 cubic inches. Wolves are the most intelligent predators who gained their mental abilities through social interaction.

The usual size of a wolf pack is 7 or 8, yet sometimes it will only have 2 or 3 wolves.

Larger wolf packs will divide into smaller groups and according to Cysani will reunite later on.

Many times one comes across loner wolves that are typically outcasts and are normally older wolves.

Wolves that form the breeding pair will be the main wolves of the pack. This will consist of wolf pups and a few male and female wolf adults.

When a wolf pup turns 2 he/she is considered an adult wolf.

Many wolf pups will die before reaching 2 years of age.

Wolves that do not belong to the pack are chased away when they visit, yet when wolf pups are born, these outside wolves are often welcome to join the pack. Older adult wolves around this time may also leave the pack. This is the time that the wolf pack gets divided into several parts. They will all inhabit exclusive territory.

“Black wolves rarely occur in Europe and Asia, where interactions with domestic dogs has been reduced over the past thousand years due to the depletion of wild wolf populations. They have occasionally appeared, as wolf-dog hybrids and are known in Russia as “black wolves”. 20–25% of Italy’s wolf population is composed of black wolves. They are more common in North America; about half of the wolves in the reintroduced wolf population in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park are black. Like Pyrenees Wolves, Black wolves do not live in France. In southern Canada and Minnesota the black phase is more common than the white, though grey coloured wolves predominate.” via Wiki

Interesting Facts About Black Wolves

Image Credit: WikiMedia

“In 2008, Dr. Gregory S. Barsh, a professor of genetics and pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine used molecular genetic techniques to analyze DNA sequences from 150 wolves, half of them black, in Yellowstone National Park, which covers parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. It was discovered that a gene mutation responsible for the protein beta-defensin 3, known as the K locus, is responsible for the black coat color in dogs. After finding that the same mutation was responsible for black wolves in North America and the Italian Apennines, he set out to discover the origin of the mutation. Dr. Barsh and his colleagues concluded that the mutation arose in dogs 12,779 to 121,182 years ago, with a preferred date of 46,886 years ago after comparing large sections of wolf, dog and coyote genomes. At the University of California, Los Angeles, Robert K. Wayne, a canine evolutionary biologist, stated that he believed that dogs were the first to have the mutation. He further stated that even if it originally arose in Eurasian wolves, it was passed on to dogs who, soon after their arrival, brought it to the New World and then passed it to wolves and coyotes.Black wolves with recent dog ancestry tend to retain black pigment longer as they age.” via Wiki